Why You’re Overthinking Your First Product (Do This Instead)

One's going to pay me to do that because they can just use AI to do that. We are lazy human beings. We pay people to bring our groceries even when our grocery store is a block away.

I literally just had AI do the whole thing, and I just copied, pasted it all in.

Dude, he made that T shirt, one design, and he handed them out for free. Hundreds of them. It went massively viral. Whereas, like, year two or three, he did 40 million. Top line. If your gut reaction is that market is oversaturated, that's the market you need to go to, because that's the big freaking market. It takes years for people to think along those lines, Right? I know where it's like, oh, one's going to pay me to do that because they can just use AI to do that. It's like you. You are selling yourself short. We are lazy human beings.

Yes.

Not just that, but we. We want to be. Like, it's a dichotomy. On one hand, we're lazy, right? Which is why we pay people to bring our groceries even when our grocery store is a block away. Like, the markup on groceries is insane. You got to pay the instacart fee, you got to pay a markup, you got to pay a tip, right? But we're lazy. And on the other hand, we have good intent. We want someone to hold us accountable, right? So if they pay you $400 a month, like, it's just them saying, you know what? Yeah, I could do this, and you know what? I have the time to do this. But knowing myself, I'm probably not gonna do this. And I know this is a good thing to do. So if I feel the pain of $400 a month, it's just gonna get done. People don't realize that when they're trying to start a business, they sell themselves short and think, no one will pay for this. People will pay for anything. The question is, are you gon to get it in front of their face?

Right? Really?

I have another idea. Okay, so let's go. This came from your idea. You know, give me 10, 20 bucks and I'll make you a business plan. Okay. And then that got me thinking. Well, if for no other reason, people aren't paying 200amonth for deep research. Okay? So it's just a good value even if my prompt is nothing special, right? Shoot. I can just say, hey, you give me the prompt, you do all the work. You're just using my Deep Research account connected through Zapier to. Through the API, right?

Yep.

Here's an idea. Good ideas have good domain names. Here's a domain name. Okay. Dollard.com $deep research.

Love it.

One prompt, one result. 10,000 words for a dollar. With sources, it's linked. I do nothing. Purely passive. You know what, maybe you want to use deep research 5 times, 5, 10 times a day you're going to pay me a dollar each time.

I have to find this guy. He did it. He did a very simpler model or a very similar model for faxing. I don't remember what the business was but what it was called. But it was like basically you could pay 10 bucks and he would do the fax for you. He fax whatever you need to. Oh yeah, I did more receipt.

I just said this before.

Yeah. And I'm like, oh, it's a no brainer. Like yeah, you just build an automation that's like, you put in whatever you want, you pay a dollar and it gets you out whatever you want. And like I do think as a, as a macro trend, stuff like that gets super interesting because of like subscription fatigue that people are going through.

It's like dude, people could subscribe if they want to.

Sure.

Right. Like if you're using enough volume.

Yeah.

And you're like, you know what, I'm gonna spend 180 bucks a month on that. I might as well buy Deep Research. But then they see right there on the sidebar, unlimited access, $40 a month. That's a no brainer. Right. I'm gonna have to look at my token usage and make sure economically it makes sense. And there will be people that try to abuse it and you can put in safeguards but you can't tell me that that would not be a good business idea. And the website is just, it's kind of like replit where the whole website is just like a, a chat, just a pod.

I mean it's, they literally have on flutter, flow and bubble and a bunch of these. No code builders. They just have like ChatGPT clones that you just put in your own token.

Yeah.

And like there's a couple, there's a couple guys that have done pretty well in the iOS space by building just like you're super AI assistant and it's literally just ChatGPT delivered again that they're just running ads at. And it's like ah, like nobody else is if you charge 50% of what ChatGPT is costing. So instead of my 20 bucks a month, I'm charging, you know, Sarah from Minnetonka, Minnesota, 10 bucks a month. So that she can ask this thing about what to do with her sourdough. And again, it's like so mass market. Like imagine. Oh, dude, it just like a super user friendly, like mass market chatgpt rapper. Like everyone's over here trying to figure out like kind of unique use cases for ChatGPT to like go and build a wrapper for. I was like, what happens if you don't wrap it? What happens if you just put it out as like, yo, this is your AI assistant, Generally speaking.

I mean, Chat GPT is a terrible name. What does GPT even mean? I don't even know.

I have no idea. No clue.

We don't even know. And we're like core users.

We should ask it itself. What is the chat? What is the GPT? What do you mean, bro? What do you mean, bro? What do you mean, bro, dude? But yeah, I do think, like, I don't know, like a simpler version of that that's just like iOS, like native and cheaper. Like, I don't. I think there's a bunch of people that probably use Chat GPT that don't have the pro version. There's probably a pretty big subset of that market where the, the use of it is just not contextualized enough to justify 20 bucks a month. But like, can go in, dude, it's like, yeah, you get super dynamic, you figure out what people are talking about and you say, hey, if you really want this to like, learn, right? Like, we look at it, there's an opportunity there. Broad thing, dude.

All right, so Sam Altman tweeted like, hey, we're kind of throwing around the idea of, okay, let me back up. Just look at power laws, right? What percentage of ChatGPT users have the $20 a month plan? I would say like 5% probably. Yeah, 95% are very casual users. They have no need to pay for and they don't. 5% pay 20 bucks a month, and of those 5%, maybe 10% pay 200amonth. So we're talking like a fraction of a percent of the total user. We agreed here.

Yeah, 100%.

Sam Altman came out and tweeted like, hey, we really want people to try operator to try deep research, but they're not going to pay $200 a month. What if, if you had the $20 Pro plan, that $20 could convert to credits to where you could test it and it would just work down your balance. Genius. Why would they not do that? Right? Then you'll get to use it, you'll get to enjoy it. And then you might upgrade to $200, right? I think him tweeting that alone shows me that there's demand for this. Like literally just this is deep research. This is nothing proprietary. You're using my account through an API. It's totally blessed by OpenAI. I'm not doing anything shady. Right? That's why they license out their API and you just run your card, your card stays on file and every time it goes to charge it, there's like a pop up that. And maybe you could give it like three or four prompts per because you're going to finesse.

You just do like. Yeah, it's like a reload basis of like, you know, we'll charge you five bucks every time and you just reload the five bucks based on a usage. Almost like how they run some of their API stuff because you can like go and add credits into OpenAI's API, right? And then it's like, oh, when you hit a minimum balance, like what do you want it to refresh it? Yeah, dude.

But imagine the data you would get out of this. Like, first of all, your users are super high value. They could be researchers, they could be white collar earners. I would just learn a ton by reading their prompts, right? Like, what are you trying to like what. That's interesting. Like it would just be really interesting to see what people are asking ChatGPT. I don't know, maybe the privacy settings wouldn't allow for that.

But it's really interesting because it kind of parlays on the back of the guides digital product thing because like what's the next step like on someone. Someone buys the book on Sourdough, right? And you can immediately hit them with here's your AI assistant for this specific thing. But it's all like the same. It's all just chat GPT. I told you for the Instant Chef. We didn't. We're not even training. Like, we're just. It's literally just straight chat GPT. But people will use it as a cooking thing because they're in a cooking app.

What if they ask like what PSI should I have on my Mazda Miata? It will it answer that or are there guardrails?

No, ask it. Whatever, whatever they want. Like, because it's Pareto principle, right? It's like 96% of these people are going to ask about the thing. Like, sure, if you have some. Somebody that's going to ask about their car, like, go ahead, I guess, like, but who's going to like there's going.

To Be some guy in Minnetonka that's like, dude, I just found the biggest life hack, downloaded this app for my stakes. And I just like randomly, I asked it about, about the NHL playoffs and it answered me. This is like the best NHL playoff app ever. And his friend's gonna be like, dude, that's literally chatgpt.

Literally what? Right?

Some guy's gonna feel like he. He found like the national treasure in your.

Dude. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying, though. It's like, I don't know. I think, I think it would be interesting to, to put out, like, very similarly. You have just the broad Chat GPT app that you clone, right? Just a wrapper. Literally. Just interact with it however you want. And then you do the same thing that you would do with the guides from a, an ad account structure perspective. Download the best personal training AI, download the. And it all just goes to like life assistant AI. And then people just use it how they want, Charge them nine bucks a month. Like, everybody becomes your audience. It's just contextualizing the download for them specifically.

Oh, this is such a good idea.

It'd be so fun. What's that one called? Dude, it's. There's a. There's a plugin. All right, I'm going to text it to you. It's called AI PRM. It's like a plugin that lives on top of ChatGPT.

I've seen this.

Gives you.

It helps prompt better.

Yeah, it gives you better prompting.

Okay. Man, that's a five letter domain name. Those are valuable.

Dude. Really sick. Super cool.

I got two more ideas.

Fire. Let's go.

You good?

Okay.

Yeah. So I'm gonna bleep this out because there are very, very few ideas. I want to bleep anything out because that's the whole nature of this podcast. Unless it involves a domain name that I'm trying to buy, that's a very clear exception, right?

100%.

All right, so is a thing, right? It is like, it's been a thing for like six months. It's blowing up. It's like. It is a phrase that is permanent. It's going to be here, and I freaking love it. And I had an Instagram reel get like 10 million views where I said that phrase multiple times. The domain name was snatched up for $10 in September of last year. Okay. The dot com.

Yeah.

And we don't, we don't do non.com unless we're like testing concepts, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I was thinking, like, that fits so well with my brand and everything I talk about, I just, I have to own that dot com. And I found the guy that owns it. He's kind of an indie hacker, build in public type guy. And he's DM me back. We're talking. He doesn't want to sell it. I'm going to try to change his mind. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

I just feel like, let's just think very, like, not innovatively. This, this could just be a merch brand, an apparel brand. Did we talk about the, the brand God is dope?

I don't think so.

Is that you and I? Okay, so God is dope. If you Google God is dope, then click on images and look at that first T shirt, the black and the white. The story behind this brand. And I've told it on this pod before, so I won't go into detail. It's this guy living in Atlanta. He made that T shirt, one design, and he went like Georgia Tech, some university, and he handed him out for free. Hundreds of them. You know what? He sold them for $5, which was his cost. That's what he did. And he's just thinking, like, I just want to spread awareness, I want to build a brand and then I'll, I'll worry about making money. It went massively viral. Okay. Whereas, like year two or three, somewhere around year two or three, he did 40 million, top line. Okay. And it was a, it was not an accident. He was very astute and he's like, don't worry about making like. And it's, it's so funny how you hear gurus and influencers say opposite things. And they're both, they both can be true. On one side of the spectrum, it's like, don't undersell yourself. Charge more than you think people will accept. And on the other side, it's like, do work for free until you get like, both work. It just depends on the context.

Yeah, 100%.

So he's like, I'm not going to be greedy. I'm going to sell these at cost. And then word of mouth, you know, T shirts are very, you know, visual. And he crushed it. He. So he did mid eight figures his second or third year. And it's a very strong brand today. And they still sell really cheap T shirts and then they sell more expensive T shirts. I feel like that works because A, it's a good design, B, it's kind of a polarizing message, right? If you're. You don't believe In God, it's polarizing. If you believe in God, it's polarizing.

Right.

I feel like this slogan that we're talking about could have a very similar effect. And honestly I would probably copy that same design and just spell it out, every single word.

Yeah.

But here's, here's the idea that I specifically want your feedback on. Is two T shirts for sale, same design, same slogan. On one of them it's just the slogan and maybe that's a $25t shirt. And then on the other one it's the slogan except one more word.com and that is the dot com and it's a $15T shirt. So you pay much less, but you're advertising the brand. You pay a fair market for a T shirt and you're not advertising it as much because there's no dot com. Maybe even you take it a step further and like down on the bottom of the T shirt, like close to where it hangs over your belt, you put a little QR code to your website. So you're walking around, someone's like, dude, where'd you get that T shirt? Oh, oh, that's cool. Hey, right here. QR code. And then you could take it a step further with an automation and every customer could be an affiliate and they could make money from, from that exact QR code. What do we think?

That one's cool. I think that, I don't think that you have to like put the dot com. I don't think that that's going to create any incremental lift. No, I think it's so video is cool.

But you know what's better? Long form audio via podcast and my newsletter, tkopod.com go there to subscribe for free to my newsletter. It's one email a week, very tactical. And then go to my audio podcast, three episodes a week. Stuff like this. You're going to love it. All free. No sleazy sales pitch.

Tkopod.com I think it's literally all of the. Just the words on the front and a big ass QR code on the back. That's it.

That's it. And that's what everyone gets for the same price.

Yeah, I like it.

Do you think that would sell? Do you think that'd be a good brand?

Yeah, like I'd have to see the shirt, but yeah, I mean like we've seen it happen so many times in brands that like every brand ends up having like their hero product that just like hits like you just strike a chord with the market, you know, like you Know I won't say names, but like there was a buddy of mine that had one that just was like four words on the back and it just hit. Everyone wanted one. Had like NBA players buying it because like it just resonated. It was like that, that phrase on its own was like what was hitting, like super cool. And so like I think about that. Like, there's other one. There's other examples that I can send you to where it's like one hero product that just went even in the, in the Christian space. Roughshot Supply. Rough shot supply. I bought their hat. Same thing theirs was. Their phrase is these are the good old days. Phenomenal.

I see. I'm looking at it now.

There's another one.

I got one. I got one.

Yeah.

Yeah. First of all, the upside down Dallas hat guys.

Yes.

You seen those?

Yes.

That guy just got a fourth string quarterback to wear at once. And now it's an eight figure product. Literally the second one.

Dad gang, guys, that you stole it from me.

Dad gang. He's all over Twitter. That's an eight figure freaking hat brand.

Based on blowing up.

And it plays to exactly what we're talking about. Like it's the, it's that message that you want to shout to the world like, I am a dad and I think dads are important and, and I want to advertise that to the world, which is like, that's kind of where everything is trending. Right?

Right. Like which that is that. That to me, like when you zoom out a little bit, like that's the definition of brand is you think about like selling products on the Internet and a lot of it is benefits and features focused. Right. But your, your marketing is around like problem, solution and like all of these, you know, more whatever versus what I call like resonance marketing. Right. Like putting something that somebody resonates with. Right. And selling a product that they resonate with, which is literally what brand really is, is like, do I resonate with this thing enough to put it on my body? And I think hats and shirts are like awesome. Like, I think that that's, that is the, the easiest way for somebody to connect and share whatever they resonate with is like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna put it on a hat. I mean, like, I wear hats every day. Mental wellness Club. Like, yeah, I believe in mental health and like wanting people to. Right. And so it's like I resonated with this and I bought it off of an Instagram ad because I resonated like, not because it's the, the softest Hat in the world or I'm addicted to camo. It's like, no, I liked what it said, so I bought it. And I've got more over there that are the same, the same thing.

Those are the hats that make people stop, like strangers stop and ask you about it.

Oh, dude, this is like my most complimented hat ever. Like, I at least once a, whether it's at Target or Home Depot or the person that's checking my tickets to get into a Laker game, they're like, dude, nice hat. Thanks.

That just gave me an idea. Like use Chatgpt or some bot or Appify or something to find all those little one liners, those catchy one liners, right. And you print out a hundred of them on a thousand different T shirts and you pass those out or you just friends and family, like, hey, will you wear these around and tell me what you think? Which one of those hundred is getting the compliments? Literally, that's the one you go all in on. Or I mean, you could just use. You could just use Facebook ads, right?

That's where I'm at. I'm like, I'm just running ads, dude. I'll get 10,000 people to see all of these tomorrow if you want. And then you just go to same design. Pod Partner, you do use Pod Partner, you use Canva. And then Pod Partner, they do print on demand. It's cheaper and better quality than like a Printify or a Printful.

It's the big one. Printful.

That's the big one. Those two. I mean, the send prayers hoodie that you have is from Pod Partner.

Yep. I was gonna ask you that.

And you know the quality of it, like it's thicker. It's just like a better setup. Yeah. And they have mock up tools and so you just like go mock up a bunch of designs. You were the recipient of that screenshot that I sent was like, hey, which of these 10 slogans do you like the most that I put on the back of those shirts? Remember like a year ago? Yeah. Right.

Yep.

And then we printed them and like that wasn't meaningful enough for me to go and like pursue that fully. But like, there's a world where that can. You know what I mean?

I still think there's something, there is something different about the offline compliments. Right. Versus like how many clicks is this design getting versus that one?

Oh, 100. I wore my send prayers hoodie in. My parents lived down in San Diego County. I worked at the grocery store and like a 65 year old dude Came up was like, dude, nice shirt. And I was like, okay, okay.

It just goes along with my framework of the harder way is often the better way, you know, like the unscalable way or whatever.

100%, I think from a. From a. Like a testing perspective to see what you can get. Clicks. Because like I said on the last episode, like, the. You're gonna run ads at some point. Dad Gang runs ads. Like, yes, the in person is an intangible, and that's all going to be its thing. But, like, they run ads to get more people to see it. And so it's like Roughshot Supply. The one with the. These are the good old days hats. They had, like. They used to have, like, eight hats that they sold. And obviously that one was the winner because now they only sell that hat in eight colors.

And it was probably like, that design literally probably sold, like, 93% of the eight colors. That's usually how it works.

Yeah, yeah.

Pareto principle isn't even 8020. It's usually like 95. 5.

Yeah. 96. 4, all the way up. I think that that's. Go test eight designs on ads, spend $100 behind each one. Which one's getting you the clicks and the conversions, and then kill the other. Don't even try to sell the other nine, even if one of them got a purchase. Just go, like, go to where the data tells you to go. And so it's like, I don't know.

I just.

It's so easy. It's people that are listening. It is so easy to test these things so fast. Go test it, and the market will tell you what's good.

I just know that there's a few percent of people listening right now, and they're like, oh, these bros literally think they just invented T shirts or print on demand. It's like, listen, stop. First of all, stop. Here's a framework for you. If your gut reaction is that market is oversaturated, that's the market you need to go to.

Yes.

Because that's the big freaking market.

Yes.

That's where you need to play around. And I meant to say this before, but I forgot when we were talking about digital products. Right?

Yeah.

Like, if you start selling $19 digital products through Facebook ads, it's probably like, where you start is probably not going to be where you finish. Right. But you've got to start somewhere. That may evolve into something much more completely different. You may land on, like, custom baseball bats. Right. But it's a very approachable way of getting revenue and learning Facebook ads. And that's the point here.

The biggest piece for me is for people that are, like, trying to step into entrepreneurship for the first time is to get them away from their ideas. You got to get out of your head. You have to get out of your head and start looking at, like, actual movement and numbers that are sitting in front of you. Like, just go turn on $100 worth of ads. I'm not going to sit here and say, you're going to triple your money tomorrow, but at least you have some data around. Like, oh, wait, this is interesting. 35% of people click through this ad, not this ad. Why? Right? Like, changes. Instead of getting caught in this, like, cyclical pattern of the same thoughts. What if I did this? Oh, here's the 15 reasons why I shouldn't. Well, what if I did this? Here's the 15 reasons why I shouldn't. That is all happening in somebody's brain. It's like, dude, we're all idiots. Like, let's just let the numbers show us what's good and follow the numbers. Like, go test 15 digital products on a general store in 15 different niches that you're anything curious about. Like, in the big ones, focus on the big ones. Health, love.

Really?

Those two. Those two get in the game.

Like, yeah, yeah. Food or religion.

Right. Like, there's. There's a handful of, like, macro market topics that almost every single person in at least the United States is interested in. How do I make more money? How do I eat better food? How do I lose weight? How do I get laid more?

Right.

Like, the macro that they would believe in. Put something out there just to see it.

When it comes to Facebook ads, don't try to be smarter than Facebook. Advantage plus. Just Advantage plus. Let it roll.

Don't tell it who to target. You're like, we run everything on broad. The creative does the targeting. The creative does targeting. They will not click on it if it does not resonate with them.

Yeah.

And then Facebook, very quickly. Because Facebook wants to put content that matters to people in front of the people that care. And they want you to keep paying them. They will, I promise. Put your offer in front of the right people. Their algorithm is what's feeding you the content that you're watching every day. Let that algorithm do that for you. 100 bucks a day. Broad targeting us only on anything, dude. Literally anything. We talked about an email opt in last time. Cool. Digital product. Cool.

We keep coming back to it. It's like a theme of our conversations.

It's the most no brainer way for someone to start making progress. Go start. I'm thinking about buying a pizza shop. Right. Came up for sale around the corner.

Are you actually.

Yeah.

Okay.

I got, I got one of the rabbits you're chasing. I got the P and L in front of my face.

Didn't know we're going here, but let's do it.

I know, but the first homeboy literally.

Holds up a piano.

Yeah, Literally looking at it. $12,000 a month in rent, dude. But the first thought that I had when it came up and I was like, oh, I wonder what's good? And I saw that they weren't spending that much on marketing, I was like, I'm just going to launch some ads real quick and say get a free pizza. And I'm just going to do a geo targeted 10 mile radius around me. Get a free pizza. Give us your phone number. Because if I can go get phone numbers for three bucks, I'm like, okay. Like I feel confident, more confident in moving in that direction.

You're gonna launch a pizza marketing agency before you ever.

Dude, slice.com is honestly, dude is the my dream business. I was like, these guys are awesome. Like so sick, dude.

I subscribed to a guy on YouTube, he's called like pizza marketing and he just goes and he walks into pizza shops and talks about marketing and I, I will never own a pizza shop. I might actually one day because I love making pizza, but it's just interesting content.

I know, dude. It's slice.com is like just the coolest thing on the planet, dude.

Here's my rapid fire idea for you to close us out. I own the domain name nevertouchplastic.com.

Got it.

Okay. This would be like an Etsy and you can use something like Share Tribe, like a marketplace as a service. You don't have to build out an Etsy. A marketplace where people can buy and sell stuff to each other that has never touched plastic. What do you think?

I had no idea that that was a segment of the market that existed. But if it does exist and you can make money on it, I would do it well.

Like microplastics. Right. Like I was making this sourdough starter. I was talking to chat GPT about it and I'm like, if I make my sourdough starter in like a plastic Tupperware which 90% of people online are doing.

Right.

Will there be microplastics? Yes. Because things are happening in there. There's heat in there, it will break down. Okay. Will those microplastics be in my sourdough forever. Because I don't know how much you know about sourdough starter, but you literally. It lasts for thousands of years. You keep refreshing it and it's like, yes, there will be sourdough in your bread forever. It's like, I don't want that.

No.

You know, so then that got me thinking, like, I need to sell an ultra premium sourdough starter that's never touched plastic. Then it's like, well, I own the domain name never touched Plastic. Could that be like a marketplace where like the weird freaks of the world that are that concerned about microplastics, which is not a large percentage of people, but it is growing like crazy, could transact with each other and you could kind of take a spread on that.

Do I think people will buy stuff that is not. That is focused around reducing microplastics? Yes. Do I think a marketplace is the best business model to go and do that in?

Now, a marketplace is as hard to start as it is a good business. If you get it going.

100.

That makes sense.

Oh, yeah. It's like, it's. It's like the biggest older to get rolling, but the moment that you hit like critical mass, the snowball is so big that it can.

Right.

But like, yeah, I. I personally stay away from marketplace business models because, like, I don't want to play the percentage of GMV game or whatever. Now charging a monthly subscription for access to a marketplace, that's on my mind. But like straight revenue model being based off of marketplace interactions. Hate that. Don't want to, like, just don't want to participate. Yeah, but people, you should just do. Just sell. Just use that domain, put it on a T shirt and just sell glass Tupperware drop shipped. Come on.

There it is.

Never touch plastic.

That could just be a T shirt too.

Yeah.

On there.

Some dude.

Geez, dude. Once again, I have a headache. That's a sign of a good pod.

That's how it goes.

Where can we find you, Sam? We're gonna. We're gonna ask every time, dude.

I'm always on Twitter at. I'm Sam Thompson. Sign up for unlimitedcontent.com. you know you need to post every single day on your blog and you just don't.

It ain't gonna hurt. I'll tell you that. It ain't gonna hurt.

Ain't gonna hurt.

All right, What'd you think? Please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the Kerner Office.